24 Sussex

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Image: Kate Crane

The invi­ta­tion from 24 Sussex Drive, black script on thick cream paper, read “Business Attire.” Laureen Harper was wel­com­ing a group of B.C. artists vis­it­ing Ottawa into her home, a rather brave act con­sid­er­ing her husband’s recent, much-reported com­ment about artists swan­ning around rich galas. My first thought: Oh crap, now I have to pack a skirt. For this writer, busi­ness attire means a stained bathrobe — “real” clothes make me feel too con­stricted and self-conscious to go about the work of words — but surely that wasn’t the inter­pre­ta­tion they were seeking.

Sometimes it’s hard being a writer; you do not turn down invi­ta­tions to events you would rather not attend on the off chance you will see or over­hear some­thing inter­est­ing, some odd gem that sets a poem or story in motion. For years I masked social shy­ness with alco­hol and mis­be­hav­iour, but antics that are for­giv­able in youth are piti­ful in approach­ing mid­dle age, so I now attend recep­tions stricken with nerves, min­eral water fizzing in hand, blush­ing with the effort of small talk. It is the great­est lux­ury to say no to an invi­ta­tion, as I thought of doing to this one, imag­in­ing instead an after­noon sprawled on the bed at the Holiday Inn sur­rounded by var­i­ous con­ve­nience– store snacks in crackly bags, while the other artists stood around the prime minister’s house try­ing not to spill their drinks on the carpet.

But curios­ity won out, and on the appointed day I walked up the dri­ve­way of 24 Sussex, past a flock of pink plas­tic flamin­gos gath­ered on the lawn. Coinci– den­tally, it was also Stephen Harper’s fifti­eth birth­day, and later the fifty flamin­gos would appear on the news and leave me with a ver­tig­i­nous feel­ing, the sen­sa­tion of hav­ing been some­where where news was unfolding.

The wife of the prime min­is­ter was notice­ably attrac­tive, with a girl­ish smile and a mis­chie­vous glint in her eye. She had bright blond hair, wore a short, snug dress that bared her arms, and seemed some­one men would flock to under dif­fer­ent cir­cum­stances. Rather than the grim mar­ble and stone inte­rior I was expect­ing, the house burst inside with sun-drenched colour — there were flow­ers every­where, fresh ones in lav­ish bunches and pat­terned ones on the fur­ni­ture. It was dif­fi­cult to pic­ture Harper loung­ing among the pas­tel cush­ions, his stiff grey hair tight as a hel­met on his head, but who knows how peo­ple are in their leisure moments?

The recep­tion was much like any other party, with bet­ter food — tiny, exquis­itely formed and some­what con­fus­ing morsels pre­sented on gleam­ing sil­ver spoons and minia­ture wooden pad­dles. And pho­tog­ra­phers — for the length of the recep­tion, pho­tog­ra­phers cir­cled the room along its perime­ter, click­ing away, while we car­ried on as if we were accus­tomed to this paparazzi exis­tence. A group of artists in the prime minister’s home, all of us on our best behav­iour! There was a rest­less­ness in the air, a whis­per­ing under­foot — some lit­er­ary types had planned to present Mrs. Harper with a let­ter urg­ing increased fund­ing for the arts, but it turned out they had grown bored com­pos­ing the let­ter and spent the day shop­ping instead.

Still, maybe some­one would do some­thing out­ra­geous; even the servers seemed hope­ful. On the first cou­ple of passes I had turned down a tray of vis­cous red liq­uid in what looked like glass test tubes; on the third pass I lifted a tube and eyed it skep­ti­cally, at which point the server said, in a tone that almost bor­dered on glee, “You don’t know what that is, do you?”

It was a shooter with a raw oys­ter nes­tled in its depths, and the server waited to see how I would nav­i­gate this chal­lenge — per­haps the briny crea­ture would stick in my craw, and I would jet­ti­son it into someone’s lap across the room — but I liked raw oys­ters, could slurp them back by the buck­et­ful. He retreated in dis­ap­point­ment. No, noth­ing would hap­pen today. We behaved our­selves in our dark suits and long skirts, sang happy birth­day to the absent birth­day boy, con­fined our­selves to the hall and par­lour though we longed to peek into every room and climb the curved stair­case to their pri­vate quarters.

When it was over, a group of us trudged down the dri­ve­way, out through the iron gates, past the secu­rity guards, into the pub­lic street. The fifty pink flamin­gos had flown from the lawn; there was no evi­dence they had been there just two hours ago, as if we had hal­lu­ci­nated them. On our arrival, spot­ting a line of cars at the entrance, our dri­ver had asked if we should cir­cle the block. The police­man direct­ing traf­fic said, “No, we’ll stop traf­fic for you.” I sus­pected we would not hear those sweet words again any­time soon.